An interesting leadership insight found here is how Major Howard was recognized as an elite candidate and then promoted as a leader. He was promoted twice in only two months. This is especially interesting since he had a bias against him for not being part of the British Aristocracy. Throughout war time, Howard’s aggressive actions and leadership skills gained him full command of the unit (160 men).

Major Howard believed in being where the critical decisions were happening. As a leader he took the following actions:

Be where the critical decisions are required.

Be where the hardest tasks are happening (Major Howard lead the team for the toughest actions).

Cross-training. Major Howard’s teams were trained and cross-trained on every objective and task.

Rewarding “A” players. Major Howard was able to select the best of the best across the organization.

Training and competitions to hone the skills of the team.

Garnering his own experiences.

Organizing athletic challenges. Howard required for the team to not only continue mental toughness but also physical agility.

Leading by example. While Major Howard was not loved by many, he was respected by all.

Business Reflection Questions…

How are you building cross-functional teams?

How are you yourself learning skills and demonstrating ability to achieve objectives?

What are you accomplishing with teams?

How are the teams performing as a result of your leadership?

What marks of distinction do you and your team’s bear?

How are you making your team excel and treating the “A” players?

Basically… What is your competition, internally and externally, and how are you performing?

What is Battlefield Leadership and what is this series about …

This is the third paper in this series. As part of my pursuit to learn and grow, I sought out the excellent management training team at Battlefield Leadership. I am professionally leveraging this across multi-million dollar projects I am overseeing (currently I am the lead executive building global compliance and security programs specifically in the online services / cloud leader space). Personally I am bringing these lessons to bear within my pursuits to cross the chasm. To often I see brilliant technical individuals fail to communicate to very smart business leaders and to the common person on the street. My new book – How Not to be hacked seeks to be a first step in bringing deep information security practices beyond the technologist.

Most exciting the Battlefield group for this training placed it in Normandy France. This allowed for senior executives to be trained in a setting where serious decisions were placed by both sides, and each provided a lesson. This series represents my notes (that I could take down) and takeaways. I share to continue the conversation with those great individuals I met, and with the larger community.